Xiaomi open to moving its servers to India: Report

Days after the Government of India directed as many as 21 phone manufacturers -- a majority of them hailing from China -- to outline the procedures and processes adopted by them to ensure security and privacy of their users' data, Xiaomi has reportedly said that it is open to moving its servers t

Days after the Government of India directed as many as 21 phone manufacturers -- a majority of them hailing from China -- to outline the procedures and processes adopted by them to ensure security and privacy of their users' data, Xiaomi has reportedly said that it is open to moving its servers to India in future. Xiaomi - based out of China - is notably the first company to go on record to say something of this sort.

"All our servers are sitting on AWS (Amazon Web Services) in Singapore and US. If AWS moves to India, we would be happy to work with them," Xiaomi VP and India MD Manu Kumar Jain was quoted by the Economic Times as saying.

The Government's directive - that came in early August -- came amid standoff between India and China over Doklam, something that has since been seemingly resolved by both the parties. Concerns over imports of Chinese IT and telecom products, however, still remain. Chinese brands - such as Vivo, Oppo, Xiaomi and Gionee - are apparently not the only ones under scanner though. The list also includes majors like Apple and Samsung, as also home grown brands like Micromax.

"The ministry has given time till 28 August to all companies to furnish their responses," a senior IT ministry official was quoted by PTI as saying. "Any device sold in the country should be compliant with global security standards. If companies fail to comply, further action will be taken," the official added.

All companies under the scanner have been asked to "provide a detailed written response about the safety and security practices, architecture, frameworks, guidelines/standards, etc., followed/implemented in your product/services provided in the country." Failure to do the same will result in necessary action from the Government.

The Xiaomi VP and India MD had previously reaffirmed that "all our phones are extremely secure." Manu had reaffirmed this fact while addressing a group of reporters in the National Capital on the sidelines of announcing the company's first Mi Home Store in Delhi NCR.

Although Manu did not go on record to say whether or not Xiaomi has received a letter from the Government, he reaffirmed the fact that all Xiaomi phones are a one hundred per cent secure.

"I won't be able to comment on any of these things. But what I can say our smartphones are extremely secure," Manu reiterated. "We do not collect any data from anybody without taking prior permission. We do have some Internet-based services like cloud, Mi messaging, but all these services require a user to cautiously say, "yes, I want to use these services" and then only these services will use their data. Moreover, all these services are fully encrypted and no person, even if they get access to the information, can retrieve it. Thirdly, all our data is sitting in Singapore and the US on AWS servers, so there's no concern," he added.

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